Chapter 4490: Why? I

The Sanctuary of The First Farmer.

In a secluded corner of this vast agricultural domain, far from the war, there existed a singular plot of land.

It was isolated, wrapped in curtain-like auroras of green and gold that shimmered with concentrated power.

The farm plot itself was perfect.

The soil was dark and rich, crumbling just right, shining with deep verdant-gold luster. It looked vibrant with potential, as if something impossible had just been planted within its depths.

Standing at the edge was The First Farmer.

He no longer looked frail or dying, or dead when his daughter last burried him. He stood tall, his skin marked with green glyphs, his golden eyes burning with steady light.

He gazed at the soil with certainty.

Sitting on the soft earth nearby was Elyndra.

She wore a verdant-gold dress, her aura pulsing with controlled power. She ran her fingers through the dirt, feeling the thrumming vibration of life beneath.

The silence between father and daughter was comfortable...the quiet of a field after sowing is done.

The First Farmer broke it.

"I should never have put that weight on you, Elyndra," he said, still looking at the plot. "The schemes. The deception. Ordering you to betray a potential ally for my own failing existence... it was desperate. The act of a dying man who had lost his Way."

His voice held genuine regret.

"I should never have asked you to bear my failures."

He turned to her, his golden eyes softening.

"I am thankful that Osmont chose not to hold it against you. He saw the weapon I tried to make you, and he chose to treat you as a person instead."

...!

Elyndra’s hand paused in the soil.

A slow, knowing smile touched her lips. Her eyes drifted to the side, as if seeing a figure in obsidian-gold armor standing in the distance.

"He isn’t that bad," she said softly, warmth coloring her voice. "His Way of Existence... it is unique. Terrifying, yes, but also... encompassing."

She paused.

"He elevated me in ways I didn’t think possible."

The First Farmer watched her smile.

He saw how her eyes softened when she spoke of the Tyrant.

And in that moment, he felt a hollow sensation in his chest...not pain, but loss!

Something precious drifting away from him toward a gravity he couldn’t compete with.

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

What could he say? He had pushed her away with his schemes. He had pushed her directly toward Noah with his commands.

He simply sighed.

Elyndra looked up, sensing his shift in mood.

She tilted her head, curious and concerned.

"What did you just plant here, Father? The energy feels different..."

The First Farmer’s expression shifted.

The melancholic father receded. The Primordial Sovereign of a Civilization emerged.

"Effort," he said simply.

He walked to the center of the plot, hands clasped behind his back.

"We speak of effort often, but do we truly understand its origin? An existence...begins to exert effort the very moment they are born into harsh reality."

He gestured to the empty air.

"Think of those born without authority. Without Mana. Without lineage. They come into the world screaming and kicking. Their lungs cry out for air they’ve never breathed. Their eyes burn from light they’ve never seen."

His voice grew stronger.

"Their very first act is struggle. Desperate, flailing effort just to be. Just to exist in a reality that doesn’t welcome them gently."

He looked down at the glowing soil.

"Since the moment one is born, they exert effort. Every breath. Every step. Every choice to continue existing when cessation would be easier...that is effort. It accumulates across a lifetime. But for most... it dissipates. It is lost, unrecognized and unharvested."

His golden eyes blazed.

"But after embarking on my Way... after establishing the Civilization of Effort... I realized that this accumulation should not be lost. So, for the first thing I plant in this new era..."

HUUM!

The soil pulsed!

"I planted these Seeds of Effort," he declared. "They will mature very soon. They will produce fruit that anyone can consume to retroactively gain harvest from all the effort they’ve invested since birth."

He spread his arms.

"Every scream as an infant. Every struggle to walk. Every drop of sweat pursuing cultivation. Every moment of persistence...returned to them as concentrated power."

He turned to Elyndra, eyes shining brilliantly.

"I prepare this to become a foundational pillar of my Civilization. And also... as a gift. A gift to the one whose actions paved the way for my Civilization’s emergence."

His voice softened.

"A tribute to The Early Creature, Osmont. "

He paused, a faint smile touching his lips.

"I will give you one to consume. And I will give you additional fruits to bring to Osmont as tribute from one Primordial Sovereign to another."

Elyndra nodded.

The First Farmer continued, his gaze turning penetrating.

"Maybe with this... with the retroactive harvest of your own lifetime of accumulated struggle... your own effort may prove sufficient to catalyze the emergence of a Principle that I could never cultivate to completion."

He began pacing along the plot’s edge.

"Principles," The First Farmer mused, "are profoundly misunderstood. Even Early Creatures often view them simply as weapons...a sharper sword, a harder shield."

He shook his head.

"They are not weapons. They are the very directives of existence. They are fundamental tools that compose the source code of reality itself."

He raised a hand, weaving a small lattice of green light.

"With Principles, you can better manipulate the underlying code of existence. With the right Principle... the right conceptual tool... you could alter your surrounding existence to affect your Civilization and impose conditions upon your enemies."

The lattice shifted as he spoke.

"You could accomplish feats that leave observers wondering how such impossibilities are achieved... when you’re not actually doing anything impossible. You’ve simply found the right key for a lock in existence’s code that lets you bypass the wall entirely."

The lattice formed an elegant tree shape.

"The Principle of Perpetual Harvest that I never fully cultivated... that was one such key. A key that opens the door to infinite accumulation. That helps build a terrific Civilization with exponential growth."

The tree became a spinning wheel.

"The Principle of Perpetual Effort, which I gained through my collapse and emergence... is another key. It lets one bypass the traditional requirement of success. Failure becomes irrelevant when effort itself is the harvest."

He looked at Elyndra, his gaze piercing.

"Now, the Principle I envisioned for you... the one I attempted to guide you toward with Perpetual Harvest’s assistance... would be a Principle that can alter the weavings of existence in an even grander manner than simple Harvest."

He lowered his voice to a whisper that somehow carried prophetic weight.

"At the very minimum... I was confident it would let you attain THE False designation rather quickly. Perhaps even transcend that threshold entirely."

...!

Elyndra’s eyes shone brightly.

Ambition and possibility ignited within her like flame meeting oil.

The False THE.

A state of being that mimicked the absolute authority of reality’s architects!

Her Nine Principles had been cultivated over eons precisely for this...to serve as stairs ascending toward something transcendent. And now, with Perpetual Harvest from Noah and the imminent consumption of accumulated Effort...

The path is becoming clear.

At this moment, the earth around them began to shine.

WAA!

Brilliant beams of green-gold light shot upward from the soil!

The seeds were germinating at impossible speed, driven by the sheer conceptual density they embodied!

Stems erupted from the earth, thick and glowing. Leaves unfurled with geometric perfection. And at the apex of each rapidly growing stalk, fruits began forming...crystalline spheres pulsing with accumulated authority spanning eons!

Each fruit contained the effort of existence itself!

The light was blinding, washing over the entire plot and making the surrounding auroras seem dim by comparison!

The First Farmer smiled with deep, satisfied pride.

"My effort is already bearing fruit," he said quietly. "As it should. As it must."

He extended a hand to his daughter.

"Come. Prepare yourself for the harvest."

Elyndra stood gracefully, brushing soil from her dress.

She approached the glowing stalks with reverence, feeling the thrumming power from the crystalline fruits. Each one contained a lifetime of struggle...birth, growth, cultivation, failure, persistence.

All the effort that was ever lost... now concentrated and ready to be reclaimed.

Her hand reached toward the nearest fruit!

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